June 18, 2010

There's nothing Wisconsin-related in those New Yorker cartoons about state maps. I remember seeing a hand-drawn cartoon in that State Street liquor store window that used to be full of funny signs. It had a map of Wisconsin and writing that said something like: "The Upper Pennisula! WTF? Did we lose a war or something?" That was many years ago. It still makes me laugh. I mean look at the map:

That is ours, baby. It's like that mitten is reaching up there an yanking off our manhood. And speaking of manhood, I think, if we had that peninsula that is rightfully ours, the politics of Wisconsin might shift from Mommy Party to Daddy Party.

Lake Michigan's southernmost point was the reference point for the statute that set the northern border of Ohio. However, this was mis-surveyed, and a contradictory definition was put into the Ohio constitution in 1802. Michigan was then specifically defined with the older southern boundary in 1805.

The Michigan Territory and the State of Ohio both pressed their claims to the area in 1835-1836, calling up the militia and sending them out to secure the strip. Contact was never made between the forces, but Andrew Jackson imposed a settlement that gave victory to Ohio. Michigan was compensated with the western three-fourths of the Upper Peninsula (the eastern bit having already been part of the Michigan territory).

Ok, good point Class factotum. Parts of Milwaukee like the baseball stadium, Harley Davidson and the breweries could stay in the New and Improved Wisconsin. As far as Madison, we'll keep the Badgers football stadium, hockey rink and basketball court. Everything else, feh.

Althouse came to my parents lake home and became fast friends with my mom. I was there and Althouse and I interacted briefly, looking at each other like we knew I was the commenter Titus on her blog. It was never mentioned though because no one else even knew about her blog in my family. There were many little Pekingnese's at my parents home that would run around at our feet.

Next, my family was invited to Althouse's home which was on the other side of the lake from my families. We looked out through Althouses homes picture windows and thought we saw humpback whales swimming but once they got closer we realized they were huge rats. The huge rats then looked at us in the windows of Althouse's picture window. Meade was in the kitchen cooking.

There was a sense of doom in the air.

The side streets by Althouse's house had been infested with Mexican gangs. The Mexican gangs were scary.

We had to run from the gangs.

Then the streets started ripping apart and it was getting very dark.

We all ended up hiding in a house where there were black women who wore traditional black dresses with big hair. They could not see us unless through a mirror of if we had shoes one. Althouse and I hid in a bathtub but they could see our reflection in the mirror. We closed the shower curtain so they could not see our reflection. But they were reaching through the air trying to get us. Then the walls started crumbling around us, the lights went out and we all disappeared.

Contrary to several headlines, the Coast Guard did not sideline the barges due to a lack of lifesaver vests on board. According to the articles below the headlines, they did it because they had not been able to contact the builder of the boats, presumably to arrange a time for inspection. (The situation being what it is, I would think they could just have gone down to the pier and asked the captains for permission to come aboard. Lifesaving equipment would be the business of the owners, not the builders, so I do not understand that either.)

Rep. Barton apologized for his remarks at the hearing because Boehner threatened to pull his committee assignment if he didn't; not because he was ashamed of them. He was, as he stated, ashamed of the Administration's tactics in this matter.

This sort of thing seems to happen all the time anymore. Aren't these on-line news-blogs, or whatever they call themselves, supposed to employ editors with some English language skills to screen these things before they are posted?

In the hunting lodge their are stuffed dear heads, pheasants, partridge, bear heads and 1960's playboy calendars hanging all over the place. Some of them are huge-the posters that is.

There is also a huge stack of playboys by the recliner.

You have to pump the water from a pump in the lodge. A wood burning stove and an outdoor toilet.

The lodge sleeps like 20 which was about the number that used to go up there. Now it is just my dad and his brother. One of the guys who hunted with them had a heartache when he was like 50 in the Blue Hills and died. His two sons were with him when it happened. He was like the healthiest man too. Weird.

I wish you could all join us at "The Artist's Loft" in Brattleboro, Vermont this weekend.

Go google it.

Plates from some African country, some Nepalese figurines, shit from Guam, paintings from some other third world piece of country.

And a fab library.

Also, my Indian UK husband purchased me the traditional INdian shirt and Pajama bottoms. He told me it wasn't sacrelig if I wore them. I asked what about a turban too but he said that would be too much.

As the Boston Globe said, just pick up Quantam Healing and gaze out at the kayakers going by your window on the Connecticut River.

There was one particularly striking moment in President Obama's widely panned Oval Office speech on the Gulf oil disaster. About midway through his talk, Obama acknowledged that he had approved new offshore drilling a few weeks before the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion on April 20. But Obama said he had done so only "under the assurance that it would be absolutely safe."

Absolutely safe? Even before the Gulf spill, few defenders of offshore drilling would go that far. And when the president announced his drilling plan, on March 31, he said it was "not a decision that I've made lightly" and that he and his advisers had "looked at [it] closely for more than a year." Surely he was told of the possible risks.

"If you can find anything that's absolutely safe, I sure want to find out about it," says Robert Bea, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California at Berkeley. "There is no engineering system that I am aware of that has zero likelihood of failure."

"We can never be absolutely safe," adds Ken Arnold, an independent consultant to the oil and gas industry. "The only way you can be absolutely certain of being absolutely safe is to shut down all production and all drilling from offshore today."

{snippity snip to end}

Maybe he used the words "absolutely safe" to deflect blame and make himself look a little better in retrospect.

That would be troubling, but not as troubling as the possibility that Obama actually believed his own claim. What would that say about the president many commentators have described as brilliant?

That it's George W Bush's fault becasue he forgot to tell him that many things in this world are not "absolutely safe" -- especially off shore oil drilling.

The Upper Penisula of MICHIGAN is ours. Cheeseites stay south. Thousand Island Lakes area is as far as you are allowed and like that dimwit from Nevada says, if you don't give us back Superior, we are going to resort to second amendment solutions.

I grew up within spittin' distance of the UP and have never met as single Yooper that actually wants to be part of Michigan. They don't want to be associated with the Trolls (nickname for Michiganders who live below the Mighty Mac.) They even have there own state fair for Pete's sake. http://www.upstatefair.org/index.asp?sPage=1

The only debate among Yoopers is where to join 'sconsin or go independent.

Personally, I side with creating a new state that includes parts of Northern Wisconsin.

Since we're at it, Wisconsin wants our western Lake Superior shoreline back from Minnesota as well. Wisconsin was originally drawn to include the land east of the Mississippi, north to Canada. Those Viking loving bastards took it away claiming they wanted another state with access to the Great Lakes. Screw that.